This is Death

This is Death

"I am death." The girl whispered

            She smiled into the mirror, red red lipstick against her pale skin, made even paler by powder and foundation. Pale as death, red as blood, a few of her favorite things. Lissa pursed her lips, pouted in the mirror, flings a kiss at her reflection and a laugh. Everything was perfect. Black eyeliner ringed her dark brown eyes, making them bigger, deeper in her small pretty face. Her dyed black hair was pulled up into a knot, a few tendrils allowed to caress her white skin, to frame the face that Lissa calls perfection and death.

            There was no difference between the two in her world.

            The silver cross almost glowed against the rich black velvet of her dress. Lissa idly stroked the trinket, metal warm and smooth from handling, her gaze slipping away from the mirror to the cluttered surface of the dresser. Vials and bottles of make-up, glass and plastic in all sorts of shapes and colors, the vanity of one girl, the wares of an apothecary. Among the lines of lipstick (all shades of red) and compacts of eye-shadow was a book. The Book. The Book that changed her life and showed her how utterly meaningless and dull it was.

            There were better things in the world, Lissa now knew that. Why find happiness in this pallid, boring life? Why pretend that the sun was a beautiful, wondrous thing and that warm breath and one’s beating heart were what made one alive? Death was life, Lissa nodded to her image in the mirror, mouthing the words, Those Words that were emblazoned across the back of the book in curling silvery font against the black.

            “No breath, no pulse, no warmth to my body.” The words came easily; she had spoken them a thousand times. “Yet within my life there is a heartbeat, an intake of air, and a caress of heat. And it is you.”

            Lissa pretended to swoon and giggled, wishing that Byron had spoken those words. She had pretended often enough that this was the case, day-dreaming in school, writing out those precious words across her notebooks and homework, scrawling hearts and stars around the lines and kissing the page when done. Her friends thought it was weird, but they didn’t understand. They didn’t know what love truly was, what it was like to look into the eyes of the most beautiful man in the world and know that he loved you, desired you, and hungered for you with every fiber of his being. Yet Byron held back, restrained himself, never once biting into the pale smooth neck of Aria, his one true love.

            I wish I had a vampire to love me, Lissa thought, prayed. She fingered the cross once more, wondering if she should wear such a thing if she was wanting a vampire to come and sweep her off her feet. Yet Byron had never been harmed by a cross, he had even bought Aria a cross necklace for her birthday. It had a been a beautiful silver piece, with a single tiny ruby set in the center, like a drop of blood, the delicate cross hanging from a plain black ribbon. Jewelry stores had stocked the necklace after a flood of demands for “Aria’s cross.”            

Unfortunately, Lissa’s parents had refused to buy it, said it cost too much. Lissa frowned, remembering the fight, how she had tried to reason with them, begged for the necklace. Cried for it. And still they had said ‘no.’ Stupid parents, they didn’t understand how much she needed the necklace, how much she wanted to wear it and pretend that Byron had given it to her for her birthday. Stood before her and looked deep into her plain brown eyes with his burning lustrous silver eyes, his luminous white hands reaching out to clasp the necklace around her neck.

            “Lissa!” Her’s mother’s voice shattered the pleasant fantasy. “You promised to do the dishes after dinner.”          

            Lissa gritted her teeth. “Coming.” She said, though she had no intention of doing that tonight.

            Tonight was the night. The night she finally broke free of this stupid fucking world and her fucking parents that dared to make her do chores. They didn’t understand her at all, treating her like a child, not caring about things she truly needed and instead giving her stuff she didn’t want. She was only 15, but she felt like an adult, mature for her age. Old enough to understand the importance of Byron’s love for Aria, the forbidden romance of a vampire for a human. Old enough to see how important true love was, important enough to die for. Important enough that the glorious and radiant Byron ignored how plain and homely Aria was and simply loved her.

            And Lissa knew if Byron was real, if she could meet him, then he would love her.

            Silver Night had shown her the way, the truth. Lissa smiled and turned away from the mirror, the black fabric of her dress swishing softly as she moved to the window. Night had fallen, prepared a way for her to show her parents and her ex-friends the truth. She grabbed her coat and pushed open the window, crawling out into the fire-escape carefully. The fall air was crisp, cool, the earth awaiting the death of winter just as she now waited for the death that came hand-in-hand with her love. The boy she had seen that one night.

            Pale, pale as Byron was said to be. Long tawny gold hair had curled about that perfect face, pale green eyes like flames burning, beckoning to her. Lissa had been stunned, lost to the world as she had stared at the boy, and he had smiled at her. Then vanished. Though she had searched she hadn’t found him, even while the sight, the memory of his gaze scorched her mind, the pain forcing her to keep looking through the crowds even as her friends had yelled at her. Called her ‘crazy’. Vampires aren’t real; vampires aren’t this, vampire aren’t that. Lissa could feel her face burning as she stepped down the fire-escape, the memory of their words enough to make her want to scream.

            Stupid, all of them.

            They knew nothing.

            It was still early in the night, people moving about, jostling her as she walked down the streets. Lissa smiled to herself as she slipped through the crowds, the thin small girl in her long black coat and dress, pale face framed by shadows. Death with that kiss of blood. It was a pretty image, something that belonged in Silver Night. She belonged in that book. And soon she would. Lissa wandered aimlessly up and down the dark streets, grinning wide when people stopped and stared at her, and then brushing past them without another glance. They weren’t worthy of her, just as she, Aria, were not worthy of Byron. Just as she was not worthy of the green-eyed boy, the pale one who looked like a vampire. He certainly was beautiful enough to be one.

            “He will love me.” Lissa whispered. “And he will talk to me sweetly, softly, even though his thirst for blood will rage through him. He’ll never let that thirst overcome him; he’ll never give into his thirst for my blood. My blood and me alone.”

            Me, of all the girls in the world, it will be me. It will be my blood that makes him desire me. It will be love, perfect true love, because he will never leave me for another person. He’ll never leave me for someone that is prettier, smarter, or better because he will want my blood. And none other.

            The thought kept her searching; the vivid green eyes filled her mind, shimmering within her sight until it was all she could see. Lissa kept walking, searching, calling out silently with her mind for the green-eyed boy. For Byron, for the vampire that would make her stupid boring life into something extraordinary. That would turn her into something, someone wonderful, and someone far from plain and ordinary and dull. Someone who wasn’t her.

            Lissa blinked back tears; she couldn’t smear her make-up, her feet aching and her body growing cold. She had walked for what felt like hours and the streets had become a dark snarled mass she couldn’t untangle. Fearfully, heart thudding in her throat, she looked over her surroundings. Trying to find her bearings. The signs were unfamiliar, the buildings shabby and frightening, and the few people that walked by were indifferent to the presence of one small girl wearing too much make-up.

            “A beautiful woman shouldn’t cry alone in the night. It invites the darkness, the monsters to come and devour her.” The silky voice was so soft, so perfect, just as she had known it would be.

            Lissa smiled, breathed in deeply, remembering the lines, her lines. “Are you such a monster?” Her voice trembled slightly, but the words were true.

            She turned to see the boy, the vampire, her vampire standing in the entrance of an alleyway. Green eyes burning, green fire drawing her in, warming her chill blood and causing her already pounding heart to race faster. The vampire smiled, a blaze of sunlight across the dawn, and raised his hand to her. It was so pale, glowing in the dark, rivaling the bright flames of his eyes.

            “Come.” He whispered. “I will keep you safe from the night.”        

            His hand was cold, colder then ice, then the approaching winter. Lissa shivered as she let him lead her into the shadows of the alley, green eyes glowing brighter as the night closed around them. Alone, her and the vampire. He is hungry for my blood, she thought, but he won’t take me. Because he is intrigued by me, he is interested in me when no one else is. He is smitten; he is in love, just as I am. She walked through a fog, moved as if in a daze, hand moving sluggishly as she unclasped the cross from around her neck and dropped it to the wet, rubbish strewn floor of the alley. Something necessary, important, though she couldn’t understand why she did that.

            “Do you know what sort of monster I am?” He asked as he pulled her close.

            “Vampire.” Lissa breathed, finding it harder and harder to speak above the rapid drum of her heart, above the shivers that had started to rack her body and the clenching of her chest that made it hard to breath. Was this love? Or fear? “But you won’t hurt me.”

            “Why not?” He was amused, smiling, drawing her closer into his frigid arms.

            “Because you love me.” Lissa’s voice sounded small, distant to her ears. Very very afraid.

            The boy smiled, a flash of white in his mouth, as the green flames of his eyes darkened to black, the pupils a glowing, bloody red. “No.” He said warmly. “I think not.”

            The face, that beautiful angelic face, melted and twisted into something horrible. Something terrible and something that had never happened in Silver Night. Lissa was stunned, frightened, screaming and screaming as the vampire became a monster. This is wrong, she thought wildly as the vampire’s claws tore into her arms. Vampires aren’t like this. They aren’t monsters, they aren’t scary and ugly. They’re supposed to be beautiful.

            He’s supposed to love me.

            She was still screaming as the vampire bit into her neck, fangs ripping into her skin and flesh. This was not like The Book. This was not love, not perfect and wonderful. This was pain, agony so intense that Lissa was dimly surprised to see that she was still conscience through such torture, still shrieking, heart pumping furiously as her blood gushed out of her mangled neck. The vampire growled as he shredded her neck, shaking her violently as he fed upon her, laughing as she cried and whimpered. He dropped her when he was done, blood still flowing from the wounds on her neck, her arms. Heart fluttering weakly in her chest, breath gasping, eyes staring up into the face of the monster.

            He smiled at her, blood red and fresh on his lips, like lipstick.

            Is this love? She thought, and then there was only darkness.